Mrs Lesley Stephen to Arthur Llewelyn Davies - 189

Description

Letter from Mrs Lesley Stephen to Arthur Llewelyn Davies, 21 July 1893

[No original available]

Transcription

22, Hyde Park Gate, S.W.
[July 21?, 1893]

My dear Arthur,
I am glad. I was thinking of Sylvia yest. and hoping Baby wd. come soon. Mind you kiss him for me. I don't come as I shd. like, as Stella has mumps and tho' I don't believe I can give it, still being with her night and day, if one can take the infection in clothes, I might.
I saw Mrs. McGraw, she is a good steady creature, my sister-in-law's cook. She will not, she says, look after the house, but I think she might when she sees that it is not a lonely one, if you thought her worth it, but for cooking she charges 16/- a week and all found w. is a good deal. So' I don't like to take her straight off tho' I suppose you must have some one to cook at once? It wd. be much easier to get the caretaker than the cook; I hope she may suit you and if she doesn't do so, I think I possibly know of someone else — and at all events cd. easily find out people.
Yr. very aff.
J.S.
Don't scruple to make use of me. I have plenty of time.

Peter's comments:

This very domestic affair, hastily scrawled and rather illegible in places, ought by rights to have come before the preceding letter, as it appears to have been written on July 2lst; though I suppose it may conceivably belong to September 2lst of the following year (but I doubt it).
The care-taking part I suppose implies that the young family were going away for a recuperative holiday. Had their previous cook given notice, or are we to suppose that hitherto S. had done the cooking herself? Hardly, right up to the last moment.